BA 281 Personal Finance

As a comprehensive introduction to personal finance, the course covers budgets, personal banking, consumer credit, insurance, investing, stocks, bonds, retirement planning, and paying for college, and an introduction to personal income taxes. Analytical tools are applied to optimize personal decision making.

Credits

4

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Analyze the process of making personal financial decisions
2. Understand the concept of opportunity cost
3. Create a system for maintaining personal financial documents
4. Create and implement a budget based on personal balance sheet and cash flow statement as starting points
5. Compare the costs and benefits of different savings and checking plans
6. Measure personal credit capacity and articulate steps to avoid and correct credit mistakes
7. Determine the cost of credit by calculating interest with various interest formulas
8. Understand the process of becoming a home owner and the potential tax advantages
9. Define risk management and evaluate methods of managing risk, including insurance
10. Identify the major types of investments available and when they are appropriate
11. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various investment strategies including asset allocation and dollar cost averaging
12. Discuss why people invest in common stock and how stocks are bought and sold
13. Discuss why people invest in bonds and how they are bought and sold
14. Explain the role of mutual funds in investing planning
15. Discuss various investment evaluation strategies including, volatility as measured by standard deviation, beta, technical and fundamental analysis
16. Recognize the importance of retirement and college planning and estimate retirement financial needs and resources
17. Be proficient in the use of present and future value formulas for a lump sum and annuities
18. Evaluate competing employee benefit alternative and maximize the utilization of employee benefits
19. Apply PV and FV formulas to retirement planning, bond pricing and college planning scenarios
20. Track, interpret and utilize in decision making, basic economic indicators such as the CPI, consumer confidence, unemployment rates, treasury rates, mortgage rates, Dow and S&P 500
21. Calculate and interpret basic investment ratios such as ROI, range and standard deviation
22. Be familiar with the common features and benefits of employer provided retirement plans and health insurance
23. Be familiar with the purpose and importance of basic estate planning tools, such as wills, advanced directives, and living trusts
24. Be familiar with the impact of estate taxes and various planning tools to minimize the impact of estate taxes